Victory in Russia: A Landmark Law Case
Corrections or additions?
These articles by Dina Weinstein and others were prepared for the
October 4,
2000 edition of
U.S. 1 Newspaper. All rights reserved.
Make Your Voice Heard: Guy Gregg
Lawmakers hurt small business owners by leaving them
overtaxed, buried in paperwork, and out of the big picture, says New
Jersey Assemblyman Guy Gregg. “Legislators in Trenton and
Washington don’t have experience owning a business.”
As the proprietor of a restaurant, this Morris County legislator knows
what his constituents are going through. It is important, says Gregg,
for small business owners to communicate with their elected
representatives,
to fortify their voice in order to level the playing field. Gregg
will give a free lecture on “The Voice of Small Business in the
Legislature” on Thursday, October 5, at 9 a.m. at the New Jersey
State House, West State Street, in Trenton. The lecture is part of
Trenton Small Business Week, co-sponsored by the Greater Mercer County
Chamber of Commerce. Call 609-393-4143.
Gregg, a Republican, is a 1972 graduate of Monmouth College in
Illinois
and owns Publick House Restaurant and Inn in Morris County. He is
chair of the Regulatory Oversight committee and a member of the
Commerce,
Tourism, Gaming and Military and Veterans’ Affairs Committee.
One of his main gripes is that government treats his small business
the same as a corporation, inundating him with red tape. He asserts
government has a prominent role in making sure small businesses
succeed
as much as the larger corporations in the Garden State on the local
and the global level. Explains Gregg: “What’s different for small
businesses is that a lot of the time the human resources director
and the marketing department is the same person.” And he says
while much attention is paid to large Garden State corporations, there
are many more Mom and Pop stores that keep the economy chugging and
New Jerseyans employed.
He offers this advice:
Go Global. It may sound overwhelming but it can be done.Gregg encourages small business owners to push the legislature tohelp out with the process of selling overseas. Get started by checkingout courses and workshops for small business owners at RutgersUniversity.Gregg says pending legislation would fund resources to train andsupportsmall businesses to sell their wares worldwide.”We’re looking at export being very important to New Jersey’seconomy,” says Gregg. “But it is difficult to get into anothercountry. Our government can help companies to face all the red tapeif they don’t have the wherewithal.”Gang Up. Small business owners can make their voices heardthrough national and state-wide associations. Many associationsspecificto certain trades and professions are based in Trenton and Washington,D.C. Association leadership can keep the entrepreneur abreast of whatis going on in state and federal government.Trade groups also speak up for their membership’s interest. Forinstance,the National Federation of Independent Businesses keeps membersapprisedof impending legislation that may affect them, and the New JerseyBusiness and Industry Association provides worker’s compensationthroughNew Jersey Manufacturers.Don’t Hesitate. Don’t just let your associationrepresentativesdo all the talking. Gregg encourages small business owners tocommunicatewith their state and federal legislators directly to praise orcriticize.Gregg encourages small business owners to pay close attentionto the actions of leadership in Trenton. He cites a number of currentissues that are of interest to small business owners all affectingthe bottom line, including a proposed sales tax rebate bill that wouldoffer compensation for administrative cost of sales tax; and a billthat would allow small business owners to participate in unemploymentbenefits.Also proposed: A business owners’ taxpayers bill of rights that wouldstandardize the way the state deals with businesses and would do awaywith the state’s “guilty until proven innocent” attitude whenconducting tax audits.”The economic boom we’re in now is a Wall Street boom, nota Main Street boom,” says Gregg. For many business owners laboris a key issue: “Look at all the Help Wanted signs aroundyou,”says Gregg. “Regarding labor there may be some simple answers.Like how is that in some parts of New Jersey there is a 15 percentunemployment while in some cities there is zero unemployment? Theanswer may be in finding a better way to move people around the state.Small business owners can be more vocal in pressuring the state toimprove public transportation.”But Gregg says labor needs in New Jersey are broader than that. Theyare actually linked to federal immigration law. “I think we shouldlook to England as a model,” says Gregg. “They issue two-yearwork permits to people who want to work there. And they fill a need.After their stint they can re-apply or go home. Small business ownersneed to get the federal government to wake up and smell thecoffee.”The point was driven home to Gregg recently when he went to an Italianrestaurant that had a sign posted reading: Part-time cook wanted,Full-time cook wanted, wait staff wanted. Says Gregg, “I had tolaugh because it was like all they were missing was `ownerwanted.’”— Dina WeinsteinTop Of PageOpinion: Limit the H-1BsSometime very soon the U.S. Congress will vote onwhetherto increase the number of H-1B visas the Immigration andNaturalizationService can issue annually. These are the visas earmarked for thetechnically-talented. The current annual limit is 115,000. Bigcompaniesin high tech and other U.S. industries want that number increased,claiming difficulty in filling open positions.By contrast, opponents of expanded immigration of thetechnically-talentedsay that federal policy should focus on training American workersto fill these plum positions. The Clinton administration sides withthe retraining camp. So do I. How come?First, as a labor historian I harbor what I consider to be a healthyskepticism when I hear talk of labor shortages. Something like 34million Americans live below the poverty line while the top 10 percentof U.S. citizens control 73 percent of the nation’s wealth. Thesestatistics sound like an echo from the 1890s, not numbers that weshould still be struggling to correct at the end of the prosperous1990s. During the 19th century our canals and railroads were builtby cheap Chinese and Irish labor. Do corporations favor increasedimmigration because they honestly can’t find trained, or trainable,Americans to fill their open slots? Or are they repeating thepracticesof the past in order to keep their labor costs lower?During the past two years a colleague from Rider University’seducationschool and I have been privileged to work with administrators,teachers,and students of the Burlington County Institute of Technology (BCIT)in developing a new apprenticeship program in office systemstechnology.Aided by U.S. Department of Labor funds, the vo-tech has moved sameof its brightest and most ambitious young people into apprenticeshippositions with employers such as Commerce Bank. My colleague, MikeCurran, and I have helped design the classroom curriculum and delivercollege-level courses. And the BCIT apprentices have thrived in theprogram.BCIT’s apprenticeship program, which would not happen without federalfunding, is one example of what can be done to meet the corporatecall for more techies by reaching out to America’s young people, manyof them minorities. This is what we ought to do before we raise thelimit on H-1B visas.When America gives its plum positions to immigrants, while tens ofmillions of our own citizens struggle for a piece of the Americanpie, we shoot ourselves in both feet. Or as Pogo once so eloquentlystated: “We have met the enemy and they is us.”— Jim CastagneraPinnacle Employment Law InstituteAssociate Provost, Rider UniversityTop Of PageVictory in Russia: A Landmark Law CaseIn 1996 Aleksandr Nikitin was arrested in Russiaon charges of revealing state secrets concerning Russian nuclearsubmarineaccidents to Bellona, the Norwegian environmental group. Bellona hadpublished a report on nuclear-environmental problems in Russia’sNorthernFleet. He was also charged with high treason by the Russian SecurityPolice. The four-year legal struggle that ensued attracted interestfrom human rights, political, peace, scientific, and environmentalgroups around the world.Now Nikitin and his attorney, Yuri M. Schmidt, are ready totalk about the charges of treason and the legal precedents that weresent in this case. The Coalition for Peace Action and the PrincetonUniversity Chapel are sponsoring a forum at Princeton University’sDodds Auditorium, Woodrow Wilson School, on Wednesday, October 4,at 7 p.m. Irene Goldman, the coalition’s vice-chair for outreachand chair of its International Citizens Diplomacy Committee, willemcee the forum, which will also cover the environmental implicationsof submarine accidents. The event is free. Call 609-924-5022 or e-mailcfpa@eticomm.net.Also participating will be Mikhail Matinov and Ivan Pavlov,of Nikitin’s legal team; Jon Gauslaa, a Norwegian attorney;and Yuri Vdovin, of Human Rights Watch in St. Petersburg, Russia.Schmidt has been chairman of the “Russian Lawyers Committee inDefense of Human Rights” since 1991. He is also a member of theInternational Board of Lawyers in St. Petersburg and member of thePresidium of the Board. He was head of the defense team in the Nikitincase. When Schmidt appealed to the Constitutional Court, he clearedthe way for Nikitin to access a lawyer of his choice.Mikhail Matinov is one of the founders of the Russian LawyersCommitteein Defense of Human Rights started in 1991. Since the end of the 1980she has been involved with many cases of persons who were persecutedfor their public and human rights activities. He defended Schmidt,when he suffered trumped-up charges and repressive measures.Fabricationwas proven and Schmidt was completely exonerated.Nikitin’s case was supported by Vice President Al Gore and Secretaryof State Madeleine Albright, and this support contributed to theRussianSupreme Court’s decision not to prosecute environmental activistsin Russia.Next StoryCorrections or additions?This page is published by PrincetonInfo.com— the web site for U.S. 1 Newspaper in Princeton, New Jersey.
